Готовый перевод Его не звали, но он приперся / They never called, yet he is here: Глава 16

Chapter 16

If some brazen face, with truly divine stealth skills, could sneak into the living room of a remote farmhouse that stood in the middle of nowhere near the always quiet town where nothing ever happens, it would be a pretty ordinary sight. Our company resembled friends gathered over an evening cup of tea, rather than a sinister band of world power-grabbers and the destruction of the current government. The presence of the cheerfully smiling Taria in our circle was a little out of place in the image of the stern mercenaries resting after their labors of unrighteousness, but not too much - although her present attire of leather armor and sheaths of twin daggers also suggested that this beauty was not sitting here for anything.

In general, we looked very ordinary and non-threatening, or, rather, threatening, but within the norm for this world. You couldn't even tell that the topic of our conversation was not women, money, and funny stories, but the most effective ways to attack what is probably the most protected object in the kingdom of Melareth. If the Royal Palace had more protection, it certainly didn't have such an amazing security system that not even a mouse could slip in. The same grandfather of our Chosen One of the Sky could crawl through the secret passages that permeated the royal residence like raisins on a muffin, but only mice and cockroaches could crawl freely in the Stone. And not everywhere and not always.

The conversation had been going on for hours, and it wasn't going to stop anytime soon. Even the smell of the wine spilled on my face was already gone, especially after I ducked into The Shadow and wiped the stains off, but the topic of conversation remained the same. I couldn't say it was an impossible task at all. But if before I could easily choose from a variety of options "how could I do it", now I had to search for it as hard as I could and improve it to perfection. My habit of always being able to stop holding back and strike at full force had already let me down during the trouble in the Kraj, so I wasn't about to let myself enjoy a sense of superiority. Especially if it was entirely false.

"What about those fearsome things you've got a knack for summoning?" Hans, rolling a massive gold coin lazily in his hands, and not of local coinage. "You want me to make a breakthrough into that hellhole of yours, and then let them have their fun while you do your business quickly? Sounds like a good idea to me."

"Though I find the creatures whose will you restrain by bringing them into our world an abomination, I must support Hans's opinion." Losius, after thinking for a moment, gives me a sour look. "I don't feel pity for the people hiding in this fortress, whatever that may be."

Yes, Locius, as the owner of a light class, finds my witchcraft as pleasant as a chalkboard squeak. No, he's perfectly in control, but he feels the same way next to me as I do next to him, using the energy of the Sky. Only if I am blinded and angry, he is literally stabbed - the consequence of the difference in power between us.

As for the problem of compassion for the enemy, I'm not surprised at all. And no, the reason he was indifferent to the deaths of the king's warriors was not that he had seen the scenes I had shown of casual hunters and gatherers wandering into the protected territory. They were neither his men nor his subjects, and they knew that they disappeared too often in the Woods, and thus were aware of the risks. It was his family's backstory, which the somewhat enraged aristocrat had told me a little earlier.

If anything, Taria, too sharp-tongued, had asked me exactly why he, Melareth's pillar, had agreed to cut the other pillar off so easily. The girl received a slap from both me and Hans, who, miraculously, showed some sense of tact and did not pry into her partner's soul. The duelist responded after a little hesitation, though the subject was unpleasant for him.

As I said before, a good portion of House Asterium, which has withered away in the last two generations, perished in the war with Sorz. Which was won by the Melareth largely at the expense of "knight's lances," i.e., the personal squads of the feudal nobility and the young aristocracy. His majesty Arial the Third proved to be a very clever and far-sighted man. His father, Arial the Second, and his grandfather, who wore the prefix First, pursued a policy aimed at colonizing the Frontier as quickly as possible. They generously distributed titles in exchange for loyal service and the protection of the frontier from ever-increasing monsters and beasts. Where towns like the Kraj and tax-exempt free settlements of "free farmers" were the blade that cut open the wilderness underbelly, the petty nobility was the blade's handguard.

It was they who ensured the settlement and economic development of the newly cleared territories. They had to develop the infrastructure, and they also got a large share of the cream of the pie. In fact, that was how the conflict between the Frontier Nobility and the Crown had arisen - or rather escalated, for it was never going away. The boys who had been given titles were no longer as useful as they had been before, but they were not about to give up their preferences and liberties either, even gently and not so gently as to ask for more and more.

On this side, Aryal's decision was reasonable and even prudent. Accustomed to wealth and a steady flow of money, the provincial barons, caught out of business, began simply to siphon off all the juice from their lands. Sometimes even outright robbery. And what could they do, if the Frontier had moved far ahead, and no one wanted to follow it, leaving their cozy nests behind? Sometimes even outright plundering. That's why it happened that the unorganized squads, not even able to determine the chain of command, were hit by the main fist of seasoned sorz warriors. And they were smushed in the bloody pulp.

Though the aristocratic hodgepodge had been badly shaken, they had done their job. They gave time for the King's troops, as well as the much larger and better-trained cohorts of the old aristocracy (who had long had their teeth in the upstarts, back when the frontier lands had not gone to the "old men" themselves, who also wanted extra coins), to get into position and break into the Sorz' flank. The Crown's losses were acceptable. The Sozs were shamed and retreated. The power of the still relatively young Arial was strengthened, and the "frontiersmen" who think too much about themselves, who had already begun to engage in strange dialogues about Arial's eligibility for his position were reduced in number.

It was the right decision from the ruler's point of view. The watchdog nurtured by his ancestors began to growl at his master and torment his cattle. Their actions were slowly tearing the country apart, threatening to weaken it enough that it would cease to be. And the neighbors wouldn't hesitate to sponsor any rebellion, just to drink Melareth's blood. The king didn't give a shit about his people, but he valued his power, his land, and his taxes more than his life, so he responded harshly and effectively.

Who cared about the fate of a very successful house that had managed, through the political maneuvers of Aryal the Third's ancestors, to rise quite high, sincerely wishing to serve the Crown and the King? They did not engage in sabotage, diligently exploiting their struggling lands and boosting the local economy. They did not withhold taxes, rob merchant caravans of all kinds of extortion, or whisper in corners about possible rebellion - they served.

It's easy to bet money that they would have understood Arial's actions, even if they knew in advance that their hodgepodge was heading into a trap with the rest of their title-mates. Surely these guys would have agreed to volunteer to be the bait to help Melareth pull off a crushing victory.

But after the victory, they find no glory, no honors, and no new rewards. They were rescued from the trap in which they themselves had entered, not caring about intelligence and failing to choose their commander-in-chief. They were rescued after their blatant incompetence in not following orders. And never mind the fact that a few of the disappearing detachments were killed by some very different sort of Sorz warriors, and the most powerful and talkative of the new aristocracy died in a very strange way. This is only a coincidence. The lack of new honors and titles is payback for the defeat they have caused themselves. They forced the King to risk his own life by leading his troops into battle. The taking away of some (most) of the lands already developed is a consequence of the fact that the number of Asterium surname bearers has diminished too much, making it impossible for them to maintain order in those lands any longer.

And the old nobility had plenty of heirs, as well as bastards... Especially if those lands were not poor villages with scary peasants, but rather well-to-do settlements. And they had contracts with several trading houses for their wares. The Asteriems, as I've already said, have tried to develop their lands beyond the trade in monster flesh, and so have only risen even higher when the stream of finances from this sector has completely dried up.

Father Losius had only one estate left in his possession, along with the adjoining land. There used to be three, plus another small but well-built fortress at the other end of the ridge. Yes, the plots were indeed quite fragmented in space, since the development of these lands was taken first in those places that would be convenient to defend. There used to be enough Asteriums to keep a garrison at each of the aforementioned points.

The family, sharply thinned down to four able-bodied people (Holan, his wife Viria, the young Nathan and Cadmius, and the very young Lossius, who had just begun to walk and was therefore not counted) tried to say something. They tried to dispute their rights and even wrote letters to the Royal Office - the remnants of the connections of their dead parents, who had their representation in the capital, had repercussions. Instead of a reply, there was a robbery attack on the caravan in which Viria was returning home. The attack seemed random, according to the tortured leader of the bandits... But the murky assistant of this bandit, who gave a tip on this caravan, disappeared somewhere, and even the hired a lot of money specialists of the secret guard could not seize him.

In general, Losius did not like royal authority, nor did his kin.

There was a reason for that, to be quite honest because no one wants to suddenly find themselves in the column "allowable losses" and then move to the next column "waste material", having received such a fantastic reward for faithful service.

All these thoughts raced through my head as I struggled to figure out how to present my answer carefully. And for me, alas, it was obvious and not at all as rosy as Hans had suggested.

"No, it doesn't work. It's not that I can't summon a creature, not at all. I'm sure it takes time to summon powerful Shadows, and it requires a lot of my reserves, but if I don't have to worry about controlling and binding those summoned, and if I let them gobble up enemy fighters without having to worry about keeping them real, then it's a viable plan. They don't attack me first as long as there's plenty of prey around... most of the time. And I can probably whip the most vicious ones, the ones that want my blood."

"So what's the problem?" Taria interrupted. "You seem to deny it, but at the same time you confirm it!"

"In the fortress itself." I ignored the accusing finger poked at me, continuing with my explanation. "Any attempt at summoning would literally shake reality. Our Adept of the Sky can tell you how hard it is to close the resulting wound on the body of the world. Also, this sort of thing is pretty easy to spot. No, in theory, I can make a call unnoticed, significantly reducing the fluctuations of the background and, consequently, the reaction of the signal systems to my actions, but then the call will not be fast and economical. And the most important thing is that as soon as there is even a single flash and we will be hit from the main calibers of the Stone. I tell you, I don't fucking know what kind of combat artifacts are there, but if their effect is half as good as the barriers that close the fortress, then I and the Shadows who haven't had time to get a foothold in reality will simply be vaporized."

"Is it that serious?" Losius wondered.

"Uh-huh, even more seriously." I'm just going to go along with it. "I told you before, my sense of intuition is blocked in every possible spectrum. So imagine the level of danger if I can sense even through all that protection."

"Okey. And what about..."

We argue to the point of grief and utter exhaustion, though it cannot be called an argument. The whole conversation is built on a particular application of the "devil's advocate. My comrades come up with various ideas, and I argue to them all that such an idea will not work and explain why this is so. Often I don't even have to open my mouth at all since the counterarguments were found without my direct involvement.

"No, girl, you're overdoing it." Hans doesn't even slap her anymore, his face in his hands as if he's desperate to get some intelligence into Taria besides the dope she' has. "It's not like you're supposed to brainwash the common peasants and the common soldiers. I'm not arguing that your... your... ability, in short, can spell even such a wolf as a Royal Ranger should by definition be. But you won't get to him! And most importantly, even if Fortune herself kisses your ass, if you show your face to one, two, or three more will notice you. Even if we were taught to always keep an eye on our comrades, they've got it in their bones. As soon as they realize you've bewitched their brother, they'll stick an arrow or two in you. In the back, so as not to look at your charms."

"It's possible to approach stealthily!" Taria seems ready to stand her ground to the last, unwilling to admit to herself that her "main arguments" may not be as absolute as she previously thought. "Or wait for them to relax!"

"They ain't gonna fuckin' relax while they're out in the field, dumbass!" The tracker yelled back. "They're the fucking elite! And even if a miracle happens and some individual fool start dreaming, how the fuck are you going to get there? How much do you have in stealth and silent stepping skills there? Do you have the skills to trick sensory abilities? You'll fucking die for nothing!"

Losius and I don't even try to change the girl's mind, so we leave it up to Hans. He, too, is a hard-headed man, no less than Taria herself, so he'll get her point across. No, her plan was interesting but too impossible to carry out. Getting past the traps and alarms, catching at least a couple of fives on relaxation and letting them watch the hypno-tits, then using the area of the perimeter controlled by the converted fighters as a support base, while using the former guards as cannon fodder is a great idea. And if Taria were a level thirtysomething, I'd probably even take a chance on her health, reasonably believing that she might make it, especially if I pumped her full of alchemy.

Alas, it's just not possible for her to do that now, even if she had smashed herself to pieces. And she realizes this, but she is almost physically unable to give up her idea. It's not that she wants to pick people's brains; that's not the main reason. It's just that she is well aware that, because of her relative weakness, she will be the most useless fighting unit among us all. That's why she's depressed about it.

Okey.

Now Hans will finish her off, after which we'll move on to further discussion.

"Wait a minute, Tin!" Suddenly interrupts his monologue about the possible use of the forest fire as a distraction, Losius. "And why are we all so fixated on the enemy fighters without even thinking about the servants? As secret as this fortress is, I doubt that the local maids would have as impressive classes and levels as the army squads assembled in the lacuna. If your dream control abilities work the better the lower the victim's level, then servants become ideal targets. Even though it's a very ungracious move, do we have to worry about following the rules?"

"Exactly! That's it!" Hans is fiercely encouraging him. He's tired of having to prove to an aristocrat the dangers of forest fires, especially when they haven't reached your enemies yet, but they're right beside you. "No, you can't make them kill the commandant and his deputies. There are incomparable levels. But even a simple diversion can be useful, especially at the right moment. It's a gold mine, Tin! Tin? Tin, what are you thinking?"

And I really thought about it, coming to conclusions I didn't like at all. That's right - it will be much easier to rewire the brains of simple servants than of experienced warriors. Especially since there are some of the most necessary servants in the fortress, despite the secrecy. Let the duty soldiers be in charge of cleaning and cooking those of them who have developed the right skills, but the economic part in the officers' sections of the fortress was in charge of the usual servants. Mostly pretty girls and relatively young guys in a lighter version of the uniform, with the appropriate non-combat classes.

Many of the soldiers saw them, and some even tried to flirt with them. Some of the officers or interrogators even managed to have an affair despite all the prohibitions, regulations, and the attention of the Secret Guards (who were not without sin either). But there was one detail in all these clerks that I had not previously noticed, but which, when I discovered it, alarmed me greatly and involuntarily made me feel very f*cking uncomfortable:

"Because they're not sleeping." I almost screamed, turning my palms into the clawed paws of old Freddy, as if preparing to fight off the sudden attack of the inky-black pole that was aiming straight for my heart. "No fucking sleep at all. Not once in all the time I've been around, not one, not one."

The guys, who had seen my tension, and who were a bit overtired because of the slight (I flattered myself here) expression of panic on my face, also quickly began to prepare for the fight. Hans gripped his never-removable dagger tightly and reached for the belt with the blade that lay just to the side, while Losius was already starting to glow an annoying celestial blue. Taria drew two daggers at once, handling them faster than Hans!

"Okay. Calm down." It calms me down more than it calms them, but it helps them, too. "I'm nervous, but there's a reason. A very good fucking reason."

"Yeah, I agree! We've all heard your story about the shit that's going on in the Kraj. I've seen it with my own eyes, too, and if they're all like those freaks with their mouths all over their bodies, I'm ready to panic, too." Taria was joking, of course, but there was some truth to what she was saying that made me calm down and start thinking with my head instead of my instinctive impulses.

"Still no. No. I saw the dreams of those soldiers who were in close contact with the unsleepers." Beginning to speak. "Too close, if you know what I mean. And there was not a single trace of them, and their dreams remained perfectly clear. The abomination I had laid to rest in the Kraj would surely have left traces on the bodies, minds, and souls of such ridiculously caught idiots. So it's not another legendary creature, at least I sincerely hope not."

"Stop." Losius raises his hand. "I think I've read or heard of something very similar, but I can't remember when. It's from when I was partying in the capital, before my unfortunate duel and my retirement as a private archaeologist under the auspices of the Crown. I was more drunk than sober then, so I can't really remember."

"Do you want a drug to improve your memory?" I responded sympathetically, trying not to show that I'd noticed how much Losius was cringing at the way she acted and lived back then. "Even your infancy comes to mind, not to mention your later years. But be warned - that potion is highly toxic, so it's better to remember naturally."

"Can you get it out through dreams?" He's not interested in drinking a harmful potion, especially if the consequences are serious. "It's a work with memories after all."

"I can do it." I nod and begin to use Soaring in Dream, gradually enveloping myself and Losius, who had already gotten rid of the excess of Sky in his body, with the shaky energy of dreams. "Relax."

I had to do it quickly, so the others wouldn't get bored. And the task itself is quite simple - compared to what I did in the Slavecatcher's camp, searching for a half-forgotten associative chain, it's not even a normal task.

"The undead alive? Seriously? And someone's ordering something like that? It's fucking corpsefucking!" Taria is all flames of indignation and disgust. "And I thought that such necromance was one of the forbidden classes and schools in Melareth. When did that change, huh?"

"You're not quite right, Taria." The aristocrat, who had just finished recounting the facts he remembered, shook his head in the negative. "They're not undead made by a necromancer. They aren't exactly alive. I do not know the full mechanism, but I heard about some of the noble houses that patronize such craftsmen. In fact, the man I killed in the duel belonged to such a house, though he was an extremely distant relative. They explained it to me very poorly, but the idea was that a ritual of subjugation to the undead was performed on a person who had just died, and then the victim was immediately healed before he could transform into undead."

Here I intervened, revealing the information I had received directly from clairvoyance - the persons mentioned by Losius were a hundred times worse protected from my attention than the garrison of the fortress.

"Such servants do not sleep, do not get sick, and cannot betray without the order of the master who created them, from whom they necessarily take all the necessary promises, signing them on the altar of some deity. An ordinary necromancer cannot seize control of what is not yet dead, and ordinary mentalists and slavemancers are powerless against the brains of those who are no longer alive. In the body itself, everything is alive - blood flows, the heart beats, and the lungs pump air. Only some parts of the soul are already dead, like a couple of fragments of the brain, but these are such little things that you can't notice without an autopsy. On the negative side, such servants do not gain experience or develop skills in any way other than killing. But servants, at least rank-and-file ones, don't need to be strong. But there is no need to fear that some too clever foe will bribe or kidnap someone who can enter the house."

I sip from the jug without even trying to pour water into the cup, and then I continue, fearing that my silence will stop the flow of information of interest to my brain.

"Often a similar method is used in reverse, performing a ritual over the servant of one's enemy to get an assassin or a spy. But this is much more difficult. Making the resulting creature feel alive, even for stationary sensory barriers and far more common personal abilities, is another level altogether. But at least now we know where Stone's servants come from and how they deal with possible information leaks there. Just make sure the homunculi don't get hurt or die and renew them when they get old, since a year of life in such unnatural hybrids of life and death magic counts as three, and the body and soul tend to die as quickly as possible to the end. The only question is whether the new undead is brought in from somewhere else, or made right there, but that's a particular matter."

The result of the general silent astonishment was summed up by the remark of Taria, who was totally freaked out by the words above, and all she could say was a breathless, sobbing sound:

"Did you see that? They're fucked up in there! Fucked up!"

" Wait, wait, wait!" There was clearly the same joy and genuine surprise in Losius' voice of a man who had suddenly made a surprising hunch that would be of great use to him. "How could there be rats in their food stores if they had all the barriers sealed off three hundred times?"

Actually, the supplies stored in the vast warehouses of the Stone were a very tempting target. First of all, if I had decided to conduct a mass-poisoning operation on bad people, it would have been a good place to start. Unfortunately, all of our general ideas about slipping a kilo of cyanide into the guys' tea came up against a pre-prepared response.

First of all, the kitchens and other utility rooms had very reliable scanners that detected most poisons of all kinds. Fortunately, the selective barrier, which covered the fortress like a dome, was configured exclusively to prevent the passage of anything but breathable air. The paranoia of the locals and architects who built this place was no longer enough to turn this barrier into a full-fledged enclosed field, covering the entire volume of internal premises with a scanner.

In theory, one could try to sneak some dangerous poison through the other realm, but that's only in theory. In practice, the sensory barriers could still react to an incomprehensible material object that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. And to the discovery of even the smallest gap into another dimension, they would react a thousand times faster and more violently, up to the instantaneous frying of the suspicious area.

That is, I need to do several things at once, without making a single mistake, to successfully execute Operation "Young Borgia Strikes Back". Create a poison that even very advanced alchemical scanners would not react to - one. To manage to somehow get inside the fortress without getting caught by the sensory barriers and without shining Shadow energy in all spectrums - two. To successfully bypass the effect of the closed field that tracks the movements inside the fortress down to every speck of dust or, I don't rule it out, at the molecular level in general - three. To be able to poison a significant portion of the food in such conditions and a hurry and not get caught in the process, four. To be able to take advantage of the resulting confusion and pull off a kidnapping - five.

The task is difficult, but not impossible if it were not for the last deterrent factor - I am talking about all sorts of prophets, intuitive, and their commander, the Watcher The latter even had a rather amusing ability, granted either by a title or a class enhancement, that allowed him to see if a person had not long to live. And if a single soldier, bearing the seal of impending doom, he could still manage to miss, then if there were many of them... there should be a picture of a suspicious Fry.

Of course, there's no guarantee that he'll use this ability when I'm inconvenienced, and it might misfire. Except for this one fucked-up ability, there's the commonplace clairvoyance and premonition, which will start signaling to the Watcher and his young crew about the coming storm. Then, when they sense the approach of doom, every single ability, even those with a long rollback and saved for emergencies, will come into play. And if I can get a small portion of poison for a couple of officers out of their attention, giving them a feeling of false safety. But death or a sharp deterioration of health of the whole crowd at once - no.

So far, the most successful option was to create a multicomponent poison that would not be lethal even after it was triggered but could provide the same mass diarrhea. At the same time, we can buy time by making the enemy blame bad food and idiot cooks. But creating a lethal two- or three-component crap won't work, or rather, the bitches will notice it. The only thing I can try to do is to make the clairvoyants' sense of smell sound the alarm after taking the dangerous poison, say, using delayed activation. If death occurs a week after the ingestion, the clairvoyant may not have time to signal the danger... If it doesn't alert at the moment when the first component comes into action. This is why everyone likes (or dislikes, it depends on the side) all kinds of intuitive - if it is possible to deceive the feelings of a beginner, as well as ninety-five percent of non-beginners, then you can't catch a really experienced Seers and can't fool the shit out of them. And all of them there, by local standards, are very much experienced.

It was because I was thinking about how to deceive my fellow clairvoyants that I did not immediately understand the aristocrat's question, thinking in a slightly different direction, and there was no room in my mind for any rats. But when I got to the bottom of what Losius meant, I became a little more active.

"That's a good point. I'd forgotten all that talk." Yeah, it was almost ten hours of discussion, and I even had time to make some light refreshments from the apples that were lying around. "Yes, in some places of the fortress, especially those where there are no really important defense nodes, the sensory field is somewhat... lenient towards possible pests. Especially all the secret rooms are protected so that there are no rats, moths, or cockroaches even in the standard level of secrecy."

"I wouldn't say a food warehouse is such an unimportant space." Objects the duelist. "Far be it from me to know the army's tricks, but even I know that any saboteur would put this place on the priority list of possible targets for attack. And there's such a hole in the defense."

"Acknowledge!" The only soldier in our company yelled emotionally. "It had always been the case that we guarded the storerooms and the latrines better than the fucking headquarters. The former was the best place to poison everybody, and the latter was the best place to kill even an officer without being seen."

Here I agree with Hans. I've already snapped one high-level mage's neck in this place myself. And it's easy to mine a toilet - in a crowded camp near this place, there is always a large line, which is the ideal target for a successful terrorist attack. Unfortunately, these thoughts did not bring me any closer to understanding why the food warehouse was so neglected.

"Maybe they take supplies for officers and other elites elsewhere, so they don't worry too much about ordinary soldiers?" I'm not sure, but I know I'm saying the wrong thing, thinking the others are dumber than I am.

"Bullshit, Tin." Hans immediately confirms my thoughts. "I don't care where the officers are eating. If they have even the slightest brain in their heads, they would not weaken the protection in the warehouses, they just would not. What kind of idiot would do such a thing?"

"I got it!" Taria jumped up excitedly, her breasts, hidden only by her light shirt, jumped dangerously, threatening to burst beyond the restrictive clothing. "We're just looking in the wrong place!"

I deactivate my involuntary gaze as soon as I realize that there will be no accidental exposure, and then I politely and gently ask the proudly straightened lady:

"Taria, my dear, sweet sunshine, don't you want to enlighten us fools about your conclusions, eh?" And a add little more involvement and kindness in my voice so that she feels it.

"If you keep begging me with these exact words, I'd listen for another hour or two." The cheeky face smiles smugly, but when she sees our sorrowful faces, she immediately begins to behave seriously. "I say in advance that I'm not entirely sure, but here's the thing... I used to work in a very elite tavern, where adventurers and petty nobles alike liked to eat. Then, however, I had to leave there when I was suspected of disappearance ... never mind. There were enough enchantments there, of course, including magical lamps. But it was always dark as in an orc's ass in a food cellar, and you had to go there with a lamp in your hands. And that's because..."

"The conflict of static and dynamic structures!" Losius almost falls off his chair, he's so stunned by the epiphany. "Of course! How could I not have thought of a similar idea? Or else in my search for a complicated explanation I forgot to think about the most obvious one!"

"The conflict of static and dynamic structures!" Immediately Hans yelled in the same tone as Losius. "Fucking hell! Why didn't I think of it before, it's fucking obvious! Losius, don't be stupid. Do you think I know what the fuck you just yelled like a wounded saiga in wounded in the balls? In a humane way, please."

I remained silent, for I, too, did not fully understand the reason for the nobleman's enthusiasm. Although I was aware of the direction of his thought. But while he was explaining all this to Hans, I would listen too, and at the same time, I would not let others doubt my intelligence.

"It's an old paradox I picked up from Kasia's textbooks." The guy was a little embarrassed. "There are certain groups of charms and amulets that are reluctant to cooperate with other similar influences. Where some signal threads can be set dozens, as long as they do not mix up in a single unviable ball, other spells will not tolerate any competitors in their field. On our estate, the cellar is enchanted with a stasis field. Weak, of course, especially compared to some, but food can be stored much longer than usual. In other estates of my acquaintances, such a field can even be switched to another mode to support the wounded, keeping them from going back to their ancestors, but here, as I mentioned, stasis is the simplest, acting only on food."

"We all figured out by now that you have a great expensive toy at home, honestly. - In the voice of a good little girl, Taria said. - Just as we realized that your friends had even more expensive toys. Can the good gentleman please explain to me, silly girl, why there are never any other charms in all the enchanted cellars?

"I'll answer that for you, too, Taria." I finally understand everything that I should have understood even earlier when the picture before my eyes formed a clear understanding of what was happening. "The stasis field, which prevents the products from spoiling, starts to fail itself if there is another source of magical energy nearby. After all, the very essence of such fields is to stop any magical and physical changes in a certain area of space. There, of course, everything very much depends on the strength and skill of execution of stasis, but the basic principle is just that."

"I still don't understand shit," Hans admits, though I'm sure he understood some of what was said and came to the right conclusion, he just wants to make sure he's right.

"Food is very infrequently brought into Stone, which means the warehouses must be enchanted to the highest standard, just like the rest of the premises." I go on, getting to the point. "But you and I already remember that the sensory field in the fortress is based on bloody air magic, the essence of which involves continuous movement and circulation. I wouldn't even be surprised if the barely perceptible micro-vortices served this field as a kind of eye, hand, and probe at the same time. And now imagine how regular motion at all combines with stasis as such? That's right! It's another miracle of professionalism, shown by the creators of the sensory field and the stasis field, that they don't cut off each other's fucking oxygen to the point of complete failure."

"But the field begins to malfunction and become incredibly, as you like to say, "stupid." A rather smiling aristocrat, legitimately proud of himself, picks up on my words. "Enough either not to notice too small objects in the food warehouses, or to give too many false signals, so it was decided not to pull the defense for every rodent or what appeared to be a rodent. I will even say more, my friends, if in the food warehouses some rats and bugs can simply not be seen, in other places they are perfectly visible, but for some reason, they did not activate protection on them. This is a much more interesting question."

"No, actually, it's pretty obvious." I disagree. "As cool as these defense systems of theirs are, even they have a certain limit to their functionality. And the remote control, which is where the surveillance is coming from, simply isn't designed to stop destroying pest-induced false signals in just one area. The protection does not perceive rats and others at once in the whole main sector of the fortress, excluding only the rooms of high secrecy, for which the controlling artifact probably has a separate control unit."

"Listen, Tin," Hans speaks with great insight, leaning closer to me. "Tell me, how much of your ability to take someone else's form depends on the size of that form. Can you pretend to be a rat?"

Satisfied smiles began to spread on the faces of all my companions, and mine as well. Though Stone was still an impregnable stronghold, we seemed to have found a narrow loophole for ourselves. And all it took was a good twelve hours of discussion and arguments and four large trays of cabbage pies. We'd better remember to order some cherry pies before we went to work.

Of course, we didn't move right away, since we had only found an acceptable course of action, which didn't negate the need to make an effort to implement it as quickly as possible. It would take more than one week to prepare, and such a brainstorming session would not be the only one. Yes, and to practice pulling very small shadows on oneself would still have to be extremely diligent. For now even relatively large fish are already the limit for me. Even the fattest rat will still be smaller, and therefore practice is needed. And not to fall into the usual traps, of which there were enough inside the perimeter walls, despite the seemingly unbreakable protection of the closed field (paranoiacs, complete paranoiacs!) is worth thinking about in advance. As well as about the possibilities to overcome the field, once inside its action - some high-class alchemical negator would be just right.

The rest of my thoughts, which I was thinking loftily as I made my way to my room for a quick nap, were brazenly interrupted when I was deftly grabbed, turned to face me, and kissed savagely on the lips. My gut, the bastard, was unwilling to warn me about this treacherous attack on the future Dark Lord by a seemingly faithful comrade-in-arms.

Not wanting to forgive the treachery of the girl, who brazenly embraced the caught, that slowly climbed on me, I went on the attack on her lips, demonstrating all the knowledge and skills of a resident of the twenty-first century. And to complete the devastation, I also picked up her firm ass with my palms, preventing her from sliding down... though she wrapped her long legs so tightly around my belt that she was in no danger of falling. Well, apparently, instead of going to sleep, I'm going to have to go to sleep-sleep, if you know what I mean.

I could hardly suppress the reflexive urge to jump into my mansion with a shadow step. That's all right with me, but Taria's playful mood will be gone for a long time, if not forever, after the scenery of the Shadow. Instead, I hug the beautiful girl's supple body tightly against me and then lean her back against the wall. And holding her in my arms, I pull her away from me.

I look into her eyes, she looks into mine, and everything comes out too clichéd and romantic. The cliché was that we were supposed to say some vanilla-snot nonsense to each other and get even more passionate, but luckily for me, Taria hadn't read any romance novels, and she limited herself to a phrase barely audible because of her labored breathing and her attempt to keep her voice as quiet as possible:

"Upstairs to my room. And Heaven forbid, Sun forbid, and both Sisters for some abomination to interfere again, for I will not save them." How she managed to make that sound both menacing and penetratingly erotic, only Taria herself knows, for I have no idea.

And anyway, I'm sure she can't do anything to those "abominations" if they do happen to interrupt our intimacy. At the very least, because I'll feed them all to the Shadows long before she gets her hands on them.

Speed matters, guys...

That last thought sounded kind of vulgar.

What I had unwittingly noted was that the constant hard training, the camping life, and the regular increases in levels and stats had taken their toll on Taria's figure. She'd been beautiful before I'd met her, even if she was a relatively ordinary townswoman, and after the power of the ring had turned her into the most sexualized version of herself. But back then it was a different kind of beauty, when the body remained soft and pleasant to the touch, pliable, like fresh clay- too weak muscles, barely noticeable looseness of form, stopped exactly at the edge where this looseness would be beautiful and not spoil that very beauty... Now Taria's beauty was different, more dangerous and predatory as if the delicate meadow flower had been replaced by the sharp steel of a blade.

Now her body was taut and firm in all places, even if without any reduction in volume, and under her velvet skin, her muscles of steel, otherwise invisible to the touch, rolled over and over. All in all, her femininity and seeming fragility were not gone but transformed into something new. Before she looked like a very beautiful townswoman accompanied by a company of evil and dangerous men, now she resembled an equally beautiful adventuress or mercenary, a member of a squad of evil and dangerous men on an equal footing.

The observation is undoubtedly very interesting, but it came to my mind at a very bad time, because here came the situation when "it's not time to think, it's time to fuck".

How do you make love to a girl whose naked breasts are fraught with an instant and highly effective hypnosis session, despite all the reluctance of the beholder? The most obvious solution would be to simply keep your eyes closed, or not look at her boobs at all. But that's just not the case. It's a very exciting pastime, though, and the occasional glance might add to the spice, and I can't guarantee that I won't be influenced by her skills in this way.

No, Tarya herself would be very happy to play with my brain as she sees fit. But I am not eager to experience her fantasy. Of course, she wouldn't take advantage of my position, but then again, I don't know what she would yell out in the heat of passion, and my skill-bound mind would take it as an order. The experience would be unforgettable, of course, but it would also be something I wouldn't want to remember.

The options with continuous use of the Gaze can be considered discarded without consideration at all. It is certainly pleasant to stare at a naked woman, but not when using Gaze, as it is a straight road to impotence. Gaze generally shows the world from a very unpleasant point of view, so it is better not to use it longer than necessary. The days when I felt that I would go crazy if I looked with it for too long are long gone, but it doesn't make it any less unpleasant. I could, in principle, keep it on all day long, but why would I want that kind of masochism?

Luckily, the girl, very eager to achieve her goal, had thought out all the necessary details beforehand. She didn't make poor Kostya strain his brain. Now she was wearing only a casual linen shirt and a thin leather vest, completely hiding the upper half of her body. But it didn't block the view of her legs spread wide and her pussy exposed with a neatly shaved pussy. And yes, thank you, my clairvoyance, for giving me the exact address of the shop where Taria bought her intimate shaving supplies, as well as the exact biography of the owner of the shop! I couldn't have lived without that information!

We didn't say anything extra - I wasn't much of a talker, and the last thing Taria wanted was to hear it. I just dumped my clothes on the floor and snuggled into the heated body of the beautiful woman who had given herself to me. I was smart enough to cast silence on the room - no need to inform anyone and everything about what I was doing, even if the guys guessed it.

Fun fact. High stats, unless, of course, they come naturally and some characteristics are more than an order of magnitude higher than others, usually do not cripple their owners or cause them additional problems in life. It doesn't happen that some strongman will crush cymbals and cups with his involuntary movements, too fast kid won't tear all his ligaments in a jerk, and a man who tried to lift a heavy log won't break his bones with a high load.

It's quite another matter if the bonuses to the characteristics will be obtained from all sorts of buffs, potions, or rituals - in such cases, the body and mind will not keep up with each other, making all kinds of injuries a very likely outcome. Run out of control and not react in time to crash headfirst into a rock wall? That's easy!

Fortunately, I can not fear such things, because although my stats are very high, but they are obtained by blood, sweat, and regular risk to life, soul, and postmortem. And in general, behaving like a textbook "warrior of the internets", who thinks about his elf of the eightieth level, even being near a ready-made girl. The only thing missing is a sign that says "fuck here" and a pointing arrow.

I force myself to pause my sick fantasy, forcing myself to think about the eternal, which is boobs, or in this case, pussy. I look again at Taria's legs apart, and, finding only barely restrained desire in her return gaze, I lean against her. My hands slid lightly over her heated body, tracing the inside of her wide-open thighs, which widened even more, and my lips covered her own.

If I'm destined to die soon, at least I'll have time to have one last entertainment!

Unlike the ring-buffed Ygra, Taria had no gifted lovemaking skills. Although to call her inexperienced would have been an utterly unfunny joke. But she had the enthusiasm, the flexibility, and the stamina of long adventures that made her quite good at exhausting poor me. And I don't care that I have many times that characteristic, for she finally got what she wanted.

The next few hours tested my imagination, my stamina, and my hearing. It wasn't that Taria was such a screamer; on the contrary, she preferred to enjoy herself in silence. Though clairvoyance told me that she had flattered her past lovers by moaning loudly and arousing pride. The clairvoyant received a mental kick with orders to shut up and stay out of the way, and I continued to have fun with the seeming clump of nerves Taria. If it hadn't been for the Silence in the Hall, our activity would have awakened every bastard not only on the farm but in the neighborhood, but I poured in plenty of energy to the cast.

There was still a lot of sweat on the top half of her clothes, and the few times she decided to ride me, I almost got a "hello" from her skill when the big breasts of the former city girl slipped out of the unreliable embrace of the fabric. However, my intuition helped me close my eyes in time, flip my partner onto her stomach, and give her a good spanking for her inattention.

We hardly spoke at all, except for the occasional phrase about the pace and amplitude of our movements. I just wasn't used to this kind of talk, and neither was Taria. Thanks to clairvoyance, she clearly intended to fuck me and did not want to dilute the debauchery with the conversation, sincerely believing that we had enough soul-searching conversations as it was.

I was caught by her skill a couple of times, and that was by accident when her vest came off because it was too hot. I was too much exposed to her breasts through the shirt clinging to her skin, so the skill had worked, even if not to its fullest extent. Or at full strength, but it was my enhanced characteristics that did the trick. At least this time I was aware of a strange lightness in my head and a pleasant relaxation in my body, but I didn't pay much attention to it at first. It was a feeling that passed quickly, coming back only when I looked at the nipples that were showing through.

When Taria herself had passed out, snoozing sweetly on my neck and wrapping her legs around me, I remembered those brief bouts of strange feelings, checking with Dreams just in case. As it turned out, I did get a couple of hits, just not as bad as I had during my first experiments in the Kraj. No, she could still order me around, but the order itself wouldn't have lasted long if she hadn't updated it.

And she didn't order me to do anything. She just didn't notice that her skill worked on me. I didn't know whether to tell her or not. No, I don't think I should, because she would get enthusiastic and try to trick me into playing her favorite games, and given her ability to pity me and beg, I wouldn't want to go along with it. After one last look through my mind and finding no bookmarks left by her hypno-babies, I sink into an ordinary sleep, probably the last peaceful sleep I'll have for the next weeks, if not months.

In the best case.

Authors note:

So that's it.

The phase of creating the plan is finished - 13 pages.

The next chapter is preparation, after which there will be the operation itself.

In this chapter, there were no crits, except for Losius, who managed to remember the lovers of creating "not sleeping " servants. By the way, MC almost panicked at the thought of another legendary creature waiting for him there.

Also, good rolls were shown by Losius, Taria, and MC when talking about the rat phenomenon.

Ah, yeah.

Taria got her hands on a treat, AT LAST. I rolled, just in case, an accidental roll with her hypno-balls, and it was even successful. But the severity of the consequences of MC's carelessness was zero (3 out of 100), so MC got away unscathed.

That's it.

Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
Его статус: идёт перевод

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/80370/535403

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP